Cell processors are a type of microprocessor that utilizes parallel processing. The basic configuration of a cell processor includes a “Power Processor Element” (“PPE”) (sometimes called “Processing Element”, or “PE”), and multiple “Synergistic Processing Elements” (“SPE”). The PPEs and SPEs are linked together by an internal high speed bus dubbed “Element Interconnect Bus” (“EIB”). Cell processors are designed to be scalable for use in applications ranging from the hand held devices to main frame computers.
In certain cell processors, the SPEs provide a monolithic execution environment. Each SPE has a well isolated execution set or context that facilitates portability and network transparency of applications running on the cell processor. Such portable SPE applications have been called SPUlets or APUlets. However, there are disadvantages associated with the identical execution environment sizes for the SPUlets. Specifically, SPUlets only come in a single grain size. A normal prior art SPUlet can simply be a single executable file image that is to be loaded into a single SPE. As applications expect more resources for execution, splitting these resources into multiple SPUlets is not efficient, particularly when such SPUlets need to be transferred across a network.
Thus, there is a need in the art, for a data structure having a larger sized unit of migration so that cell processor applications can be packaged and migrated to operate and interoperate across and in a network.